I'm not saying I watch too much television, but the fact remains, I do keep dreaming about TV characters.
The other night I dreamt that I was being chased by Law & Order: Criminal Intent's Vincent D'Onofrio (Five, Saturdays; Hallmark every other day) over land and sea. Every time I looked around, he was somewhere in the crowd behind me, with his big scary, starey eyes, pursuing me doggedly. I leapt from speeding trains, across ravines, hung from the landing rails of helicopters, all to get away from him. Along the way, I devised a cunning plan - I would walk up to hotel desks and airport check-ins, saying "You have to help me - Vincent D'Onofrio is following me, and may be trying to kill me. Can you upgrade me to first class? He'll never find me there ...", which invariably worked, and is a trick I've not yet tried in real life, though I may do soon. I will let you know how I get on.
Eventually, D'Onofrio-of-my-dreams caught up with me after a breathless, nail-tearing climb up Mount Rushmore. It turned out that I was not his quarry after all, but his agent. And he was very unhappy with my representation, as he felt all the roles he was getting were psychotic or in some way twisted, and he wanted to renegotiate terms of contract with me. The whole thing was emotionally distressing, and possibly profesionally damaging, to boot. What will my other celebrity dream-clients think?
The next night I dreamt I delivered a vegetable box to Inspector Wexford, but we'll talk about that another time.
Here are the previews for tonight's TV, and, as a boon, tomorrow night's too. You can read more, and more in-depth, by getting this week's Guide, available in all good newsagents. And most other newsagents too.
Hustle 9pm, BBC1 Something of a high water mark in desperate plotlines powers the (nominally) non-monetary sting perpetrated by Stacie (Jaime Murray) during tonight's penultimate outing. After her pal Emily tries to top herself due to the muck-raking actions of slimy tabloid hacks Frances Owen (Kenneth Cranham) and Tim Mullen (Paul Kaye), Stacie flogs the duo a red top-ready bombshell, namely the story of how the real Queen Mother died within the sound of Bow bells during a blitz-time visit, a fact confirmed by her long-lost son. Yep, that'd be good old Albert (Robert Vaughn).
Joss Hutton
My Name Is Earl 10pm, C4 What if you try to help someone who doesn't want to be helped? That's Earl's latest dilemma when he tries to make up for siphoning petrol from one of Joy's trailer park neighbours, and discovers that he inadvertently foiled a suicide attempt. Adam Goldberg pretty much reprises his role as the annoying guy Eddie from Friends here (the guy who wouldn't move out), going out of his way to wind Earl and Randy up. It's not all a drag for them though: Earl discovers books on tape. "I got a novel version of Road House read by Patrick Swayze."
Richard Vine
Beauty And The Geek 10.30pm, C4 The show that throws together the sexy-but-dumb and clever-but-clueless continues. This week, the gorgeous gals have to learn scientific anatomy while the brainy boys are given a massage challenge. Both sides are learning things about each other, but is there romance in the air? There's no doubt that the programme-makers know exactly what they are doing - they use every trick in the book (and editing room) to ensure that the narrative unfolds neatly and the stereotypes are gently challenged along the way. It makes entertaining, if somewhat contrived, viewing.
Martin Skegg
Ladder 49 (Jay Russell, 2004) 8pm, Sky Movies 1 Unlike the police, the fire services get a pretty good deal in the movies. The police get dramas about internal corruption and power tripping; firemen movies are all about how they endanger themselves without thought to personal safety and, usually, how their family life suffers as a result. Oh, and they usually have big explosions as well. This ticks all those boxes, perhaps a little too well. Joaquin Phoenix and John Travolta ensure it's quite sturdy but it's hard to think that this isn't cashing in on 9/11 grief.
Phellim O'Neill
Masters Of Horror: Imprint 11.30pm, Bravo For Takashi Miike, boundaries aren't so much something to be pushed as to be blithely stepped over. Deemed unsuitable for transmission in the US, this is easily the strongest, most extreme thing ever intended for the small screen. It's also one of the best. Reportedly, it was Miike's intention to outdo the torture scenes in his own Audition. Mission accomplished: there is a lengthy sequence that is near impossible to endure. Incredibly, it gets even worse, filling up the remaining time with abortions, rape, incest, murder and surreal deformity as Mystery Train's Youki Kudoh spins a tale of pure evil. Unmissable ... if you dare.
Phellim O'Neill
Primer (Shane Carruth, 2004) 12midnight, FilmFour Firstly, there's no way you'll get this film on just one viewing. It's far too complicated. It involves some techie types pottering away in a garage trying to build a superconductor. One of their experiments starts to yield some strange results, creating a field where time seems to be forced into an expanding loop. They decide to build a bigger version, so they can enter the loop themselves. This causes problems. Made for $7,000, this film has far more brains than bucks. Although it admirably never spoonfeeds the audience with information, it plays fair. This will surely maintain a cult status. Just give it time.
Phellim O'Neill
SATURDAY
Who Killed My Brother? Kelso Cochrane 7.35pm, BBC2 In May 1959, a recently arrived Antiguan immigrant called Kelso Cochrane, an aspiring law student, was beaten to death on a west London street. The killer, or killers, were never caught. Nearly half a century later, Kelso's younger brother Stanley embarks on a quest to understand what happened. The fascinating documentary that results unveils a ghastly story of organised, racially motivated violence, that occurred well within living memory. Viewers should be warned that on viewing the interviews with Colin Jordan, the utterly unrepentant former head of the White Defence League, the temptation to heave heavy objects through the screen may become irresistible.
Andrew Mueller
NCIS 8pm, Five Check this out for a great opening: a couple in a parked car at night; he's ready, she's not. He gets nasty and tries to take her anyway. When all of a sudden a paratrooper with a dodgy 'chute smashes through the car roof, splashing them both in marine juice. Was Larry "too juiced to pop his reserve"? Or, as Gibbs suspects, the victim of premeditated murder? You're really not supposed to take any of this very seriously, though: when alive, poor, doomed Larry's nickname among his combat buddies was "Thumper".
Ali Catterall
Awards For World Music 2006 7.30pm, BBC4 World music carries with it unfortunate connotations of emaciated sociology teachers dancing around in pillbox hats, but beyond the stereotype is a, well, world of excitement, which is showcased admirably by Radio 3's annual awards show. Highlights include the marvellous Malian blind duo Amadou And Mariam, who became an overnight success last year after 30 years of singing and performing together; and Congo's Konono No 1, who play a roots-based trance music using pots, pans, and microphones built from old car parts.
Will Hodgkinson
Intacto (Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, 2001) 9pm, BBC4 A Spanish thriller with a juicily original premise - that luck can be exchanged, bought or stolen. Thus, there exists an elite community of people who accumulate the luck of others and gamble with it in bizarre ways - like running through a forest blindfold and seeing who's the last to hit a tree. Planecrash survivor Leonardo Sbaraglia is a novice to this world, who discovers that all roads eventually lead to a Tenerife casino run by "the god of luck", Max von Sydow. Elegant, dark, and complex, it's a film that some will find annoyingly confusing and others rapturously preposterous.
Steve Rose
Calvaire (Fabrice Du Welz, 2004) 12midnight, FilmFour Marc breaks down and reluctantly accepts help from a troubled and lonely farmer, Bartel, who lives in a thinly populated rural area. Soon Marc is trapped in a nightmarish scenario where Bartel and the even weirder inbred villagers are convinced he is Gloria, the farmer's missing wife. This brutal Belgian curio sets itself up like a standard slasher movie but mixes in jet black humour and an arthouse-style narrative to create something far more disturbing than teens in peril fare.
Phellim O'Neill
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I realise it doesn't look, at first glance, like Vincent D'Onofrio has anything to do with the what's on TV for either of those two days, but he really really does. Honestly.
